Nicolae Neacsu

The Romanian musician Nicolae Neacsu, who has died aged 78, rose from rural obscurity to become the world's most celebrated Gypsy violinist. Toothless, illiterate and soured by a lifetime of poverty, he cut an unlikely figure as a musician many claimed was touched by genius. But as leader of the Romanian Gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks, he stunned listeners with his startlingly improvised technique.

Born in the village of Clejani, in the Wallachian region south of Bucharest, Neacsu played violin from an early age. Clejani is a Gypsy village full of musicians - the caste of Lautari - and was a descendant of the Lautari who once performed for Wallachia's courts. He played in tarafs (or bands) at weddings, funerals and harvest festivals, while eking out a living from agricultural work and selling contraband cigarettes.

Beyond the inhabitants of the village, the first to note his musical gifts was Speranta Radulescu, a Bucharest-based musicologist. Radulescu began recording Neacsu in the early 1980s and, in 1986, she took the Swiss musicologist Laurent Aubert to Clejani, where they made a series of recordings with Neacsu. Aubert passed the work to Ocora, a French record label devoted to ethno-musicology. To wide acclaim, Ocora issued them in 1988 as Roumanie: Musique Des Tsiganes De Valachie.

One especially impressed listener was a young Belgian music promoter, Stephane Karo. In early 1989, he went in search of Neacsu - a difficult task since the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had banned maps - but eventually he found the violinist, bedridden and so despondent that he had stopped playing. Karo encouraged Neacsu and the other Lautari to continue, and promised to get them to Belgium.

Karo kept his word: on hearing of Ceausescu's execution in 1989, he returned to Clejani and assembled a dozen Lautari, lead by Neacsu. He named the outfit Taraf de Haidouks (Band of Outlaws) and signed them to the Belgian label Crammed Discs. Their 1991 debut, Muzique des Tziganes de Roumanie was an immediate sensation, topping the European world music charts. The most striking track was Neacsu's Ballad Of The Dictator, in which he sang of the uprising that toppled Ceausescu. With a horsehair tied to his violin, he distorted the instrument's sound to great elemental effect.

Among Neacsu's many admirers were Yehudi Menuhin, who invited Taraf de Haidouk to share the stage with him, and the Kronos Quartet, who toured and recorded with the Taraf. The Taraf's second and third albums, Honourable Brigands, Magic Horses And Evil Eye (1994) and Dumbala Dumba (1998), kept up their reputation for wild, improvised flights of string music.

French film director Tony Gatlif cast them in Latcho Drom (1993), and, five years later, Sally Potter used them in her film The Man Who Couldn't Cry. While on Potter's set, the Taraf encountered actor Johnny Depp, who became their most vocal promoter, flying them to Hollywood to perform at private parties.

Taraf de Haidouks' chaotic, inspired concerts made them a huge live attraction. In London, they drew capacity crowds at the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall, and last year embarked on their first UK tour.

Ironically, it was only in Romania that they remained unknown. When a number of international journalists travelled to Bucharest in December 2000 for the recording of their live album Band Of Gypsies, the Romanian media was bemused and suspicious that the foreign press wanted to encounter the local Gypsies.

Band Of Gypsies was released to great acclaim last year, and, in January, won Taraf de Haidouk the best European artist award at the first BBC Radio 3 world music awards. Johnny Depp presented the award to Neacsu. The Taraf continued to tour, but at their final date, in Switzerland, Neacsu announced that it would be his last concert, and that he was going to die. Returning to Clejani, he passed away in his sleep.

Despite his good fortune late in life, Neacsu continued to wear his battered trilby and live in Clejani. He saw himself as one of the last traditional Gypsy fiddlers, observing in an interview: "You don't learn this job, you steal it. A true Lautar is one who, when he hears a tune, goes straight home and replays it from memory. The one who plays it certainly won't teach you. Yes, the violin is light in your hand, but it is heavy to learn. Like mathematics."

He is survived by his son and grandson, both of whom are musicians. His wife predeceased him.

· Nicolae Neacsu, violinist and songwriter, born 1924; died September 3 2002